West of 16w

By Mark Slomiany

A quarter-life crisis as told through the scrolling tableau of the American landscape Based on his own quarter-life crisis and subsequent cross-country journey, WEST OF 16W explores the societal fears and pressures that threaten to drown the seedling aspirations of today's 20-somethings striving for more than instant material wealth. Meet Mark, the son of immigrants, whose need to fulfill familial expectations led to a life of hard study culminating in a Ph.D. by his mid-20's. Yet underneath the disciplined scientist facade, Mark had always dreamed of traveling the country and writing great novels. And so, with diploma in hand and love life in shambles, Mark hits the road to explore his long-suppressed literary aspirations. Set amongst the uncertainty of post-9/11 America, WEST OF 16W takes us into the quarter-life crisis of a young man as told through the scrolling tableau of the American landscape. From the deep south of Charleston, to his North Jersey hometown, to the west coast by bus, the novel is as much an introspective journey as cross-country adventure as Mark seeks balance between familial expectations, personal aspirations, and the affection of the woman he loves.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1432703110
• ISBN13: 9781432703110
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: Outskirts Pr
• Length: 412 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Every Morning We Make A Choice

"Everyone is accountable for their OWN actions each day. Think you can 'fix' them? No Way! I mean every morning we make a choice whether to make something of our lives or just sulk in the past." Sarah Mark Slomiany has taken a journey across the United States via bus and of all the extraordinary people he has met, Sarah, 17 years old makes the most sense. She has the wisdom of the years that we all wish we had at age 17. What we could have done with our lives with that kind of wisdom. As I was reading her words, I thought, "Mark, grab this girl, she is what you need!" But, of course, she moves on, and he moves on, and never the twain shall meet. Mark, born and bred in New Jersey, of Polish immigrants and brought up to be an independent educated man. He obtains his PhD at the University of South Carolina, and before he starts the life of a professional researcher, he decides to follow a dream and see the US. Mark has always wanted to write the American novel and unveil the talent that lies within. He says good-by to his family and his friends. His friends, all of whom seem to be having their own issues, and we learn a little about them all. The day arrives, Mark gets up early, says his good-byes and off he goes. His adventures on a bus are as you might imagine. People are strange and most bus travelers are characters. Mark provides the action and relays the conversations. There is a lag in action and commentary at times, but the author picks it up and halfway through the journey the novel takes off. The journey is more than a bus trip, this is an adventure in finding a way. Mark has relationships that cause him concern, and as Sarah, the young woman he meets on the last leg of his trip from New Jersey to Charleston says, "everyone needs to accept responsibility for their actions." The first couple of chapters grabbed my attention, and then there was a small let down, but the author came through. The characters he met and the adventures he sought were zany, fun and irripressible. His descriptions of the country he sees, and his uncanny ability to size up people on a first meet are remarkable. Sarah, the girl on the bus has such an affect on Mark that he is able to clarify his thoughts on the last leg of his journey. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. 'On The Road Again' as Willie would tell us. A quest and a vision and every morning we make a choice. Good goin' Mark. Highly recommended. prisrob 06-08-08

Mark's story of traveling the road in search of inspiration to make himself a better writer

The road, a truly intangible place - yet a place many turn to for inspiration. "West of 16W" is Mark's story of traveling the road in search of inspiration to make himself a better writer, to write something truly magnificent and to make himself famous. His personal desires clash with his family, he seeks out love, but somehow he has to get through the gauntlet of life to make it through. A top pick for community library literary fiction collections and for anyone who has a life of uncertainty ahead of them.

A New Jersey Metro-Sexual hits the road.

If you enjoy landscape artistry, you'll love Mark Slomiany's "West of 16W", an odyssey that begins in the Rutherford, NJ, the hometown of William Carlos Williams, and blazes a visual panorama from coast to coast. Slomiany writes like Faulkner after gulping a hi-octane Starbucks, his expansive wordscape and verbosity rolling uncontrollably at times like the bus scenes in the movie, "Speed." The story brings to light the life of the narrator Mark, a somewhat effete young man who's just finished his PHD at 27, still lives at home with his Polish immigrant parents, and struggles between his loves for two complicated woman: one, named Nicole, is his former girlfriend who he tags around with and is in love with another man, and the other, Sabine, is a divorcee involved in a lesbian relationship. As a means to escape his ennui, Mark packs his rucksack with an endless loaf of banana bread and heads west from Rutherford, to flee his restlessness and experience the ruggedness of America outside of his textbooks. Prior to leaving, the narrator laments about his generation's loss of the romantic soul as they settle down and seek suburban materialism. At that juncture of the book, I wanted to scream and ask, "What has changed?" That's no different than what my generation lost and of course, the generation before me. It's just that you're living longer and if you're like my sons, you're life is easier, still living in your parents' home at 27, playing military games on X-box, fighting out of some of the coziest fox-holes in the world, fearing only the orange smear of chito's paste from your fingers might jam up your hand held remote control, or a Coke can might spill as you maneuver away from the make-believe bullets of your enemy. At least your generation has a little more time to play; to dream! At eighteen I was living in a flat near Lake St. Clair, working the night shift at a Bolt factory, reading Williams poetry from my textbook under the yellow dim lights of the warehouse, sitting on my hilo, using the weight tickets to write notes on, awaiting one of the header-machine operators to motion to me to place another coil of steel before them. Who had time for a trek across the country? But that's me.... Similar to Twain's, Huckleberry Finn, or even Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath, Slomiany uses his narrator's journey as a means to reveal the excesses and hypocrisy of America in the post 9/11 times. And though the book, early on, basically is a dialogue book with very little action, Slomiany keeps your interest enough to keep you on that bus with him, teasing you with one encounter after another through Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Idaho Springs, planting the seed of a major altercation to come with Sabine in San Francisco around the middle of the trip. Don't get me wrong. Slomiany is a major talent. As Antonio Salieri questioned God about the enormity of Mozart's greatness, one has to ask all the literary critics and great writers of our times, "Hey, where

Idealism

Slomiany, Mark. "West of 16W", Outskirts Press, 2008. Idealism Amos Lassen I found a lot to like in Mark Slomiany's "West of 16W", a look at America after 9/11/03. 9/11 did something to most of is but more than anything else, I think, it made us aware of our fears. We found ourselves caught up in the materialism of the real estate bubble and our aspiratons began to shift as we realized that our world was dominated by self-interest, apathy and material desires. It is hard to claim an identity because what we want and what we have and who are almost indistinguishable. We found ourselves adrift on a sea made up of things we could not identify and we seemed to have lost the direction of to where we were headed. As our boats rocked on the waves of indifference and uncertainty, we became more closed about many issues and more open about others. Slomiany's main character is Mark---a kind of modern day everyman. He is in his late 20's and the son of immigrants. He felt the need to fulfill his family's expectations which led him to have his PhD by the time he was in his mid 20's. But he also felt that he was incomplete. His dreams were not to become a scientist but to travel America and to write novels. After graduation, he decided to take to the road and to explore his literary hopes and dreams. He travels from the deep South to the North and to the west coast as he introspects and struggles to hold onto his idealism and find a sense of balance between what he really wanted, what his family expected of him, and the affections of the woman that he loves. Taking the journey with Mark cause me to also look within myself and herein lay the beauty of the book. Mark is a modern day everyman who sets out on a sea of indifference and is rocked by the waves of not caring and is headed for an unknown destination. The fluidity of the prose and the character development allows us to have a peek within ourselves. Whether or not we will find answers is another question but sometimes the journey is worth the trip.

Author's take on WEST OF 16W

My writing style is gritty, emotional, and densely, almost scientifically, descriptive. My novel's roots are in the honesty of convictions and feelings that come when writing caffeinated and exhausted after a long days of work. Worts and all, its the passionate telling of the pre-9/11 world of my generation's youth slipping away and the one emerging... Its about FEAR- fear of terrorism, fear of the country's divisions (red and blue), fear that you're going to have to `settle' if you want the person you love and a decent life. It's what it means to be the average late 20-something and realizing that time's no longer on your side; that multi-tasking work and your unconventional aspirations (art, music, writing) your running out of time to become the person you've dreamed of becoming. It's a time of choosing between your own personal aspirations and the shared aspirations of a meaningful relationship with someone (marriage, a family). It's about confronting what you've accomplished thus far and wondering what kind of world, what kind of country, what kind of life, you and you and your 20-something generation are heading into. Yes, it has an occasional typo (according to one reviewer) and not every sentence is conventional. But that's life, that's a 27 year old struggling to capture the details of his world before it disappears in the distorted fog of memory... And in the end, after all that writing and rewriting, it's honest, and that `s the account I wanted all along. I mean, sure it could use a big-budget professional editor (I'll leave that for when I have a big budget), but then it wouldn't be the same novel- wouldn't be the expression of a guy in his late 20's trying to relate his world in his own words.